Linguistics before linguistics: Evidence of linguistic thinking from the ancient history of the alphabet – Dr. Danny Bate

Event details

This talk will introduce the ancient history of the alphabet, from the tradition's emergence in the Middle Kingdom of Egypt, up to the formation of the classical Roman alphabet from which the English and German renditions descend. It will then examine instances of 'pre-linguistic' thinking: that is, an awareness of phonetics, phonology and morphology that influenced the alphabet's development, prior to an established tradition of linguistic study. It will conclude with a demonstration of the difficulty in identifying who the alphabet's ancient innovators were.